News

Paris-based company 2425 Films, recently acquired by Mediawan, is working with a pool of rising filmmakers on timely movies, including Charly Delwart’s “1,5 degré,” Ilan Duran Cohen’s “Le coup d’apres” and Thomas Kruithof’s “Les Braises.”

2425 Films, founded by Thibault Gast and Matthias Weber, has been thriving with smart, high-concept commercial movies, such as Yann Gozlan’s “La boite noire” and “An Ideal Man,” as well as the thriller “Burn Out.” The company also presented Gozlan’s latest film, “Visions,” a thriller starring Diane Kruger (co-produced by Eagle Team Entetainment) at this year’s Angouleme Film Festival.

Duran Cohen’s “Le coup d’apres” is a film set in the world of French politics, with a duo of French stars, Marina Fois and Laurent Laffite, who previously co-starred in “Papa ou Maman,” a French hit comedy franchise. Laffite, who also stars in Netflix’s limited series “Tapie,” plays...

SeriesFest has announced the official lineup for SeriesFest: Season 9, which will be held from May 5 to 10 in Denver. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” producers will be presented with the SeriesFest Impact in Television Award at the annual festival, Variety can exclusively reveal.

SeriesFest: Season 9 has slated a wide variety of screenings, panels, workshops and sneak peeks/television premieres at this year’s festival. The non-profit organization is committed to showcasing and uplifting rising talent and underserved communities through episodic storytelling.

This year’s Impact in Television Award will be presented to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” producers Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey and Tom Campbell, for their pioneering and creative developments in the world of television production. Barbato, Bailey and Campbell will also participate in a panel on Monday, May 8, where audiences can ask the creatives questions.

“We’re excited to celebrate this amazing content and embrace conversations about the ever-changing industry,” Randi Kleiner, co-founder and CEO of SeriesFest,...

The setting: a small resort, Les Cimes, in the Swiss Alps, a stone’s throw from the French border. The moment: the end of ski season, tourists have left, time seems to be suspended. The plot: a corpse is found, tied up, with an edelweiss in its mouth. The protagonist: Captain Sterenn Peiry (Marina Hands) leads the investigation. She still mourns her 15-year-old daughter, killed three years before in an avalanche.

So much for the beginning of “Off Season” (Hors saison), a Franco-Swiss police series, produced by Akka Films, Gaumont Television with Rts and France Télévisions, and beautifully filmed in CinémaScope by Pierre Monnard.

This thrilling six-part series, presented to buyers at the French TV market Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Biarritz, is best in class in the art of constantly misleading the viewer. From the very first minutes, the plot thickens: a second corpse, found in the same gloomy setting, but on the French side,...